Geothermal vs. other renewable technologies
Most people nowadays are familiar with renewable energy technologies such as Solar Thermal Hot Water, Solar Photovoltaics and Wind Power. These technologies tend to get the majority of attention from the media, and subsequently are also often in the spotlight when it comes to government subsidies. While we encourage any form of investment in renewable energy, the question becomes:”Which technology will give us the Best Renewable Return On Investment?”.
We think that if we want our society to become more environmentally friendly and less dependent on fossil fuels, and we want to do this in the most cost effective way, we need to evaluate which technology delivers the largest amount of renewable energy per dollar of investment.
We compared 4 common residential renewable energy alternatives in the Calgary market:
- 3 ton geothermal heating, A/C and hot water system - Installation cost: $27,000
- 2 Panel Solar Thermal system - Installation cost: $10,000
- 1.3KW Solar Photovoltaics system - Installation cost $10,000
- 1.9KW Skystream Wind Turbine - Installation cost $20,000
Geothermal delivers the most renewable energy per $ invested
First we determined the annual average outputs in terms of useable renewable energy to the homeowner for each technology (the numbers for the other renewables were given to us by the manufacturers). Then we normalized these outputs to $1,000 of investment for installation cost of the technology. The conclusion is visualized in the graph. A geothermal system clearly delivers the owner the most renewable energy per $ invested.